The European Parliament has kicked back a vote on proposed copyright law changes until September to allow tempers to cool and the agreed text to be re-examined.
The decision was forced because 31 MEPs abstained, 318 voted against the European Commission's proposals, and 278 were in favour. Parliamentary rules require a plenary …

RE: Doc Syntax

Re: RE: Doc Syntax

Except it doesn't affect the functioning of the Internet. This is an IT news site, I think we should at least use the right names for things when we talk about them: while this law may certain websites and services more expensive to operate for the large corporations that own them, the functioning of the Internet will be completely unaffected by it.

Much as I'd rather not have Donald fucking Trump able to dick around with the world's biggest economy, I still don't think that's good enough reason for me, as someone living far away, to have a vote in the US Presidential elections... and that's something that really does have an impact outside of the area where people vote for it. But despite what might have been true in the 1990s, the web is not a single, pan-national entity anymore - people outside of the EU really will not be affected by these changes (The same Google that can serve an ad bouquet that's tailored to a single individual, wouldn't be able to tell if they're in France or Brazil? Bullshit).

If we in the EU decide we don't like the rules, then we, and we alone, will vote to get them changed.

Re: RE: Doc Syntax

"If we in the EU decide we don't like the rules, then we, and we alone, will vote to get them changed."

But thats it isnt it. We have to kill this before it gets in, just like with what happened with SOPA. Once this gets in getting it out will be next to impossible, as we all know that the system is skewed. Once something becomes law it will usually remain law for a very long time unless it becomes quite clear that something is terribly wrong with it. The decriminalisation of homosexuality is an example where the law was changed due to significant social pressure/rethink, we then slowly labeled those who were opposed as homophobes.

Recently laws banning the use of cannabis for medical use have been called into question (along with other "revelations" surrounding the people involved) but only due to the life threatening situation of a child.

I seriously doubt that such pressure will be available to assist the future public for voting this out within the lifetimes of the people who knew the "old ways". Once those people get too old/die off, the only ones left are their kids, who grew up with these amendments as "status quo". They wont think to have this changed and if they do they will likely see it as a retro call back to the old internet that grandad used to talk about.

It may not change the way the internet works but it does threaten to change the way the internet is used. Everything the internet has brought humanity is due to its inherent non-bias and freedom. Taking that away, bit by bit, along with other laws essentially destroying the publc domain today will hurt the public at large.

Copyright was supposed to protect the public and the public domain while giving perks to the copyright holder for a certain and reasonably limited period. It was supposed to make the public richer, within their lifetimes, while encouraging creators to create more. But as it stands today and with these and future changes like these, you as a creator can live off one or two single creations that are doing incredibly well with no incentive to do more. If it continues to bring in money, your descendants need never work, inheriting the royalties and becoming a the new rich elite.

Re: RE: Doc Syntax

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that every creative artist is a Coppola/McCartney or Pratchett. They are lucky exceptions, and it's as unrealistic to think of them as representative of artists as it would be to think of Steve Wozniak's career as representative of that of all programmers'. Most people who work in art do not make a steady living, and really struggle. Royalties are a lifeline to these people.

The killer for small artists is that, more than the successes, they rely on Internet distribution for compensation, but it's precisely the current model that allows mega-corporations like Google to monetize their work without paying the original creators.

The idea that a creator "can live off one or two single creations" ignores the many, many dead-ends and failures they had to hit before getting those. This isn't easy. If it was easy, everyone would do it.

Re: All of it

You're making it sound as if MEPs are too stupid to work out for themselves what's spam in their inboxes, and what their constituents - you know, the people who vote them in and need attention above all else - actually want.

Who knew you actually had to put effort into researching the needs of your voter base when they can just all come to you!

The "false consciousness" arguments are always so empty, whether made here or by some hopeless Chomskyite.

Re: McCartney

As usual, an individual who happens to have loads of money and a potential axe to grind makes the headlines and can try to directly drive the political process at the highest level. Bert from Scunthorpe, Abbi from Brighton and Jessie from Bognor on the other hand are ignored as they're not rich, not famous and wish to present balanced political opinions based on common sense and research ...

"The detractors included the Mozilla Foundation, Google and Wikipedia, which arguably wouldn't have been affected by any of the changes."

Really? You don't think Wikipedia would be affected by a link tax? EVERY Wikipedia article using a link to a news site would be hit with a bill. For anyone not aware that's a massive bill and will result in widespread censorship of the internet to avoid linking, or such huge bills that i doubt even the Wikimedia foundation could afford.

"other similar sites"

Not all of the "other similar sites" you're referring to have the exception applied to them.

For example, some friends and I have been developing DBHub.io in our spare time.

That's a data collaboration platform instead of source code. From reading the text of the proposal... we don't get the exemption. So we'd additionally have to implement this load of horse shit proposal, or throw in the towel.

Well done EU

This is the right result. Copyright is already far too protectionist, and this change would have badly affected smallish companies (not just the Googles of this world). trying to do innovative things online.

A lot of people would not consider that misidentifying. Is there anywhere else in the world where nazis walk the streets wearing jackboots and swastikas while carrying loaded guns and shouting abuse about blacks, jews, muslims and liberals?

I think this result was the correct one, but not for the reason a lot of frothing loonies who are trenchantly narrow-minded in their opinion do. I come down somewhere between both sides in this.

And yes, we all know that an Orlowski article is largely an excuse for him to grind his axe.* But he has made some good points in his articles about this.

The intent behind the laws are good. The two articles in particular make sense. Greater protection should be given to content creators, rather than the huge platforms that sponge of the output of others to draw people in then slurp&sell their data on.

Likewise, publishers host content they've paid people to create and deserve to be reimbursed by companies that link to their material. If they're prepared to take money from advertisers for linking to material that nobody is interested in seeing, then they should put their hand in their pockets to pay for the content gets eyeballs focused on the pages they whore to advertisers. Otherwise it's just techno slave-labour.

I think the articles could do with re-writing, tweaking to ensure that the end result matches the intent behind them. It shouldn't come down to an automated takedown service because we all know they don't work, are easily gamed by large companies who can afford to automate their takedown requests, and requires people who mostly can't afford the automation to manually appeal after the fact. That's fucking backwards. And before the protests start, I'm well aware that Facebook/Google/Twitter, et al, can't afford to hire enough humans to deal with all the content that gets uploaded to their platforms.

I'm just very firmly of the opinion: Fuck them.

It's their responsibility to ensure that their business operates within the limits of the law, not the law's responsibility to adapt itself to the fact that they can scale out content upload easier than they can content vetting. If they can't afford to do that then they either need to throttle their upload speeds or get into another line of business.

If I ran, for instance, an off license, and had an automated facial recognition system to determine if I was selling alcohol to a minor, I'm pretty fucking sure the licensing authorities wouldn't accept that as a valid defence in court. Even if I told them I have a billion customers an hour and the error rate is only 1%.

I do get fucking hacked off with the bullshit being spouted by both sides though. Google fighting against copyright enhancement and pretending they're doing it for the content creators is fucking sickening. As is the music industry and their puppets doing the same. Content creators get screwed by both sides, hard and dry, and always have done.

Both sides are fighting for their own pockets, the actual content creators are being tugged like a ragdoll between them. I just hope the people drafting this law can tighten the laws up enough to make them stick and fuck both the media industries and tech goliaths at once and force them to pay creators a reasonable amount for their work. Not just let them pillage it while claiming the moral high-ground.

The would be a fucking result.

*To be honest, I'm pretty sure the head has disintegrated by this point, and the haft has been whittled down to a toothpick.

European Parliament baulks at copyright reform vote

deserve to be reimbursed by companies that link to their material

Links? No! If I run a news aggregation site for say retro steam shirt presses. and link out to other sites that cover the hobby. If I present this as a headline, short blurb and hitting that entry links out the the site with the article. Now the endpoint websites may have a wider content type that my very specific interest group is interested in. Or if I run an aggregation site that covers electronics and again link out to various sites then someone who is interested in the link I have for an article on a Valve Ham Radio speciality site can click the link and end up on the site. We both get paid!

Now I should I be paying to link to these sites when I'm driving traffic to them? Really? Both sites get paid either by advertising or paid sub or whatever. If I have to pay to link to your site then I simply won't link.

Re: European Parliament baulks at copyright reform vote

If I present this as a headline, short blurb and hitting that entry links out the the site with the article.

If your summary says "The Grimsby Standard's theatre review this week made note of a Press-o-matic Model 6A being seen in a production of Hamlet recently: Link Here ('Theatre: Is This A Pressed Shirt I See Before Me')" You are not liable to anything. The summary is your work, and you have copyright in it. There's no copyright in the link to the story at the source, so that's not a problem either. Headlines are titles, so they're not subject to the same restrictions on use as the body text.

But, if you instead use an automated scraper to lift the opening paragraphs of that linked story, and present lists of these as your "news" section, then you are doing nothing more than reproducing copyrighted text (the newspaper's), and yes, you've got to pay for that, because you didn't create anything. The aggregator code itself could be your copyright, but not the products of it.

The simple question when it comes to copyright is: did you make the thing? If you made it from scratch, it's yours automatically. But if you made the thing from an existing thing or things, then the question is: can the thing you made function as a sufficient replacement for having the original things you used to make it? If your new thing can't act as a substitute for its sources, you're protected by copyright again (under "fair use" and "parody" exemptions among others), but if it can, you're just reproducing existing works without permission.

An analogy if you will allow.

If content providers have to scan every single piece of data they publish to ensure that EVERYTHING is legit and above board

then i await the day with glee

that our fucking useless council are held liable, including "executives" and councillors personally, for every illegal activity that goes on within council property* to include such as drug dealing, prostitution and others.

The language used by MEPs shows their complete disdain and utter contempt for the public

MEP Jean-Marie Cavada. "We received tens of thousands of emails on the copyright directive, almost 40,000 to be exact. This influx of email has even blocked the computer of one of my colleagues. It becomes spamming... [b]We cannot imagine that these emails are grassroots.[/b]"

No, of course you cannot image that Joe Public might actually not want this Article, might object to it. Only an MEP could class objection as spam. And since does "almost" equate to "exact"?

My phone call registering my objection was not spam, nor was my email. It was exercising my democratic right to object to over-reaching legislation.